USA – More “navigators” are helping women travel to have abortions

By Lillian Mongeau Hughes
January 30, 2024

Chloe Bell is a case manager at the National Abortion Federation. She spends her days helping people cover the cost of an abortion and, increasingly, the interstate travel many of them need to get the procedure.

"What price did they quote you?" Bell asked a woman from New Jersey who had called the organization's hotline seeking money to pay for an abortion. Her appointment was the next day.

Continued: https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/abortion-travel-navigators/

30.01.2024

Commentary

abortion funds

abortion support networks

Brittany Fonteno

Chloe Bell

Melissa Fowler

National Abortion Federation

patient navigators

Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette

18 Months After “Dobbs,” Here’s How Abortion Providers and Activists See Things

Abortion funds and logistical support groups are enabling people to travel out of state to obtain abortion care.

By Eleanor J. Bader , TRUTHOUT
December 28, 2023

After the Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs decision eviscerated the already limited federal right to abortion, 14 states — Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia — banned the procedure.

In some of these states, clinics closed. According to The Guardian, 42 U.S. clinics shuttered in 2022, plus 23 more in 2023. But as disturbing as this is, it is not the full story. Despite financial, legal and political obstacles, many clinics in states that have banned abortion have pivoted, continuing to provide essential reproductive health services such as contraceptives, STI testing and treatment, and routine gynecological exams, with some expanding to deliver prenatal and gender-affirming care. In addition, new clinics have opened in states like Wyoming and Maryland where abortion remains legal.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/18-months-after-dobbs-heres-how-abortion-providers-and-activists-see-things/

The rise of the abortion cowboy

By Becca Andrews
October 17, 2023

The doctor wants a pair of boots. Not just any boots, either. A specific brand of cowboy boot, handcrafted in Texas. Boots that adorn the feet of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, for instance, and singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton.

We’re at the airport in El Paso, after a seven-hour journey from a small regional airport in the Southeast to a major metropolitan airport to, finally, this airport, about an hour from the abortion clinic in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where Dr. Aaron Campbell will work for a couple of days before flying back home. Campbell, who asked that his precise travel route not be published for safety reasons, has made this journey 10 times in the last year. But today, before he starts his rotation, he’s got plans. He wants proper cowboy boots and a cowboy hat to complete the look.

Continued: https://www.reckon.news/news/2023/10/the-rise-of-the-abortion-cowboy.html

No, It’s Not True that People in Abortion Ban States Have ‘No Options’

Too many people do not know that abortion resources do exist—even if they live in states where abortion is banned, or can’t afford to pay for the travel or medical care.

9/18/2023
by MELISSA FOWLER

People are getting abortions. A new Guttmacher report suggests there were thousands more abortions in the states where abortion remained legal in the first half of 2023, than there were nationwide during a comparable period in 2020.

This makes stories like the TIME profile of a 13-year-old rape survivor who was not able to obtain an abortion even more heartbreaking. The teen—whom TIME referred to as Ashley (a pseudonym)—was failed by broken systems at several points. Her experience shows the stark reality of how people with money and privilege get access to the healthcare they need while those without means—especially young people and people of color—do not.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/09/18/getting-an-abortion-in-banned-state-legal-abortion-fund/

18.09.2023

Commentary

Guttmacher Institute

Melissa Fowler

National Abortion Federation

National Abortion Hotline

United States

Health

Human Rights

Post-Roe, anti-abortion groups target law protecting clinics from violence

The Face Act penalizes people for blockading and threatening abortion clinics. Anti-abortion activists want it repealed

Carter Sherman
Sat 16 Sep 2023

The inside of the abortion clinic was chaotic. Anti-abortion protesters lined the walls. A few had sat down on the clinic’s lime green chairs and draped themselves in chains. “Please inspire these parents to keep their babies!” one man shouted, before he started singing about the Virgin Mary. As some of the protesters sang and prayed loudly, the police officers crowded inside the clinic tried to urge them to move. They didn’t want to budge.

It was 22 October 2020, and one anti-abortion advocate was livestreaming a group of activists who were at the Washington DC-area clinic to, in their view, “rescue” people from having abortions. One redheaded young woman turned to the camera.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/16/face-act-anti-abortion-threaten-clinics

Abortion bans fuel a rise in high-risk patients heading to Illinois hospitals

By Kristen Schorsch, WBEZ Chicago
SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

When she was around 22 weeks pregnant, the patient found out that the son she was carrying didn’t have kidneys and his lungs wouldn’t develop. If he survived the birth, he would struggle to breathe and die within hours.

The patient had a crushing decision to make: continue the pregnancy — which could be a risk to her health and her ability to have children in the future — or have an abortion.

Continued: https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/hospital-abortions-npr-partnership/

Abortion bans are fueling a rise in high-risk patients heading to Illinois hospitals

August 23, 2023
By Kristen Schorsch
3-Minute Listen with Transcript

When she was around 22 weeks pregnant, the patient found out that the son she was carrying didn't have kidneys and his lungs wouldn't develop. If he survived the birth, he would struggle to breathe and die within hours.

The patient had a crushing decision to make: continue the pregnancy — which could be a risk to her health and her ability to have children in the future — or have an abortion.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/08/23/1193898181/abortion-bans-are-fueling-a-rise-in-high-risk-patients-heading-to-illinois-hospi

Abortion Activists Are Targets of Violent, Gendered Threats After Overturn of Roe

The threats almost always come from men.

BY ZELLY MARTIN, DR. MARTIN RIEDL, EDITH HOLLANDER, AND DR. INGA TRAUTHIG
JULY 10, 2023

If your job necessitated that you cope with constant death threats against you and your three-year-old, would you do it? What if you weren’t getting paid? Cathy* is an abortion rights activist whose answer is a resounding, yes. But Cathy wasn’t always an activist. Four years ago, she was a pregnant woman living in Ohio and thought she was having a miscarriage. “I went to the emergency room because I was having a lot of fluid leaking. And when you're pregnant, that's obviously a cause for concern, and I was having horrible pain, and I thought, Oh, my God! I'm miscarrying.”

She came into the ER sobbing, and the staff immediately took her into a small room without her partner. “What did you do to cause this miscarriage?” they asked. “I'm sobbing, and leaking, and I'm like, ‘Nothing, nothing! Can you help me? I think I’m losing my pregnancy,’” Cathy recalled saying.

Continued: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/abortion-activists-violent-threats-roe

10.07.2023

Commentary

anti-choice cruelty

anti-choice death threats

anti-choice fanaticism

anti-choice hatred

anti-choice misogyny

anti-choice threats

criminalization of pregnancy

Melissa Fowler

National Abortion Federation

Propaganda Research Lab

United States

Anti-choice

Human Rights

Anti-abortion violence on the rise a year after Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade

KERA | By Caroline Love
June 26, 2023

Abortion was a right people thought was secure — the Supreme Court protected it more than half a century ago. But the same court snatched that right away last year.

The reaction across the country was visceral. People took to the streets during hot summer nights in cities across North Texas. They chanted “hands off my body,” channeling their anger into protests.

Continued: https://www.keranews.org/news/2023-06-26/anti-abortion-violence-on-the-rise

Alito said Dobbs would lower the temperature. Instead, it fanned the flames of abortion extremism.

Federal prosecutions of abortion-related crimes are way up in the year since the court overturned Roe v. Wade.

by BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN
06/24/2023

When the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion a year ago, Justice Samuel Alito suggested that returning the issue to lawmakers might alleviate extremism on both sides of the issue.

Roe v. Wade and other rulings protecting abortion, Alito wrote, had “enflamed debate,” “deepened division,” and prevented a “national settlement of the abortion issue.”

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/24/abortion-extremist-violence-dobbs-00103539